Obama to Colleges: No More Jacking Up Tuition

Introduces plan to control tuition costs

(Newser)
–
President Barack Obama today called for an overhaul of the higher education financial aid system, warning that colleges and universities that fail to control spiraling tuition costs could lose federal funds. Speaking to students at the University of Michigan, Obama said he was "putting colleges on notice" that the era of unabated tuition hikes is over. "You can't assume that you'll just jack up tuition every single year. If you can't stop tuition from going up, then the funding you get from taxpayers each year will go down," Obama said on the final stop of a three-day post-State of the Union trip to promote components of his economic agenda.

The president first announced the outlines of the financial aid proposal during Tuesday's State of the Union address. His plan targets what is known as "campus based" aid given to colleges to distribute in areas such as Perkins loans or in work study programs. Of the $142 billion in federal grants and loans distributed in the last school year, about $3 billion went to these programs. His plan calls for increasing that type of aid to $10 billion annually. But the initiative faces long odds in Congress, which must approve nearly all aspects of the president's plan.

President Barack Obama speaks at the University of Michigan's Al Glick Field House, Friday, Jan. 27, 2012, in Ann Arbor, Mich.
(Carlos Osorio)

Doesn't sound like a bad idea especially forcing the Universities to stabilise tuition costs or otherwise risk losing funding. There plenty of deadwood that can be cut from the administrative side of Universities without effecting the quality of education. The biggest problem I foresee apart from congress itself is the lobbying which will be done by the Universities themselves as they will not accept this ultimatum lightly, especially from the Democrats.

MichaelJ13

Jan 27, 2012 11:11 PM CST

God he's just so disgusting..

winterfairy

Jan 27, 2012 5:29 PM CST

Obama's new slogan -- "Blame we can believe in!"

Copyright 2015 Newser, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. AP contributed to this report.

Community

Site Maps

Get Newser

What is Newser?

Face it: there's too much news. At Newser, we choose the most thought-provoking and entertaining stories from hundreds of US and international sources and reduce them to a headline, picture, and two paragraphs. And we do it 24/7—you can come back morning, noon, night (and in between) for something new that matters. Read less, know more.